316 SEVERN STOKE.

Severn Stoke.

THE name means a village on the Severn; it is seven miles below Worcester, and includes the hamlets or manors of Kinnersley, Sandford, and Clifton; has an acreage of 3,250, and a population of nearly 700, who are engaged in the cultivation of the usual cereals, and there is a good deal of meadow land on the banks of the river. A fair and weekly market were granted to the lord of Severn Stoke by Edward II, but these have long ceased. Earl Coventry is lord of the manor, and, with the exception of 200 or 300 acres, all the parish belongs to his Lordship. The village is picturesque, having several houses in the cross-timbered style, and the church stands out boldly from the dark wood of Severn Bank.

The church is chiefly Decorated work, with traces of Norman in the north wall, and a few Perpendicular additions. The tower occupies the position of a north transept, and groups very picturesquely with the rest of the building, which altogether stands much in need of restoration. Living worth nearly £800. Hon. T. H. Coventry rector, Earl Coventry patron; church accommodation, 450, nearly all free.

In the time of the Commonwealth, the minister of Severn Stoke, Mr. Wybrough, was shot at in his pulpit by Mr. Somers, father of the famous Lord Chancellor, and a Jacobite ballad recorded the event thus -

"His satanicall zeall at Stoke it was such

That he shott at the parson; you'll think this too much,

But he loved the old cause as his son loves ye Dutch."

The hole is still to be seen in the pulpit where the bullet